Hello everyone,
Today I’m going to write a bit about the idea behind the Gladiator’s Challenge. There is an explanation written in bold at the end of the article. Feel free to skip to that if you want although I suggest that you read a bigger portion of the explanation so that everything makes sense.
There are different types of players for each game, that’s obvious. The majority of players tend to like the casual side of gaming. A good example is Commander in Magic: the Gathering. It’s fun, relaxed, and, most importantly, it’s meant to be played with friends in a casual environment. The stakes are low and that’s precisely why the Commander format has such a massive appeal to it.
But there are also other types of players. The ones who get a kick out of the adrenaline rush they get by playing more seriously, more high stakes, more strategic. The Gladiator’s Challenge is mainly meant for these competitive people. I say mainly because it’s very important to note that the casual players who want a challenge from time to time also should give it a shot.
Every Saturday starting with the next one there will be a Gladiator’s Challenge for some of the games that support competitive play. The first prize will always be a sealed box of the newest edition of that game. Yes, this will also include One Piece even if I have to get one from Cardmarket because…reasons. *ahem* Anyway…As I was saying, the idea is that at the end of such a tournament, the winner should be rewarded for his skill, regardless of the top deck factor. A win is still a win.
But what about the other participants? It’s important to me that people don’t leave super disappointed if it was a bad day in terms of winning. It’s a terrible feeling when the deck refuses to cooperate and a 0-2 drop from the tournament is completely guaranteed. Sometimes it happens like that. Aside from a guaranteed participation prize, I will also have smaller side events for the ones who no longer want to continue playing. These smaller events will also have a good pricing structure, albeit smaller than the main event.
Let’s talk about two of the most important factors for the Gladiator’s Challenge: the prize structure and the entry fee.
These two factors are intertwined. One serves the other and the other is a driver towards the first one, if that makes sense 🙂 The entry fee will depend on the game that’s being played. You can expect the fee to be different between Magic: the Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh! for example. The main takeaway from this is that the prize pool will consist of 100% of the entry fee. Here’s an example: The game played is Magic: the Gathering. The entry fee is 15€. As The Arena sells 3 boosters of the current edition, in this case Bloomburrow, for 15€ then 3 boosters will go into the prize pool. That also means that the box cost needs to be covered as well. 10 players would be enough for that if it’s a 15€ entry fee, but what about the participation prizes? This is where it’s a bit problematic. I don’t want to overcharge but it’s necessary that the event is covered in terms of prizes with the minimum amount of players. So here’s how I think the problem can be solved.
A minimum of 10 players is needed. I’ll be using this example as the minimum requirement. Continuing with the MtG example, the entry fee would then be 30€. This covers the cost of the box for first place and adds another 36 boosters to the pool from a second box. At the start of the tournament, each participant would receive 3 boosters. This would leave another 6 boosters left over. These will be spread out over the top side players from the end of the tournament ranking. That means 2nd place would receive an extra 3 boosters, 3rd place an extra 2 boosters, and 4th and 5th place 1 booster each (I am aware that I would put an extra booster to make the numbers match 😀 ). Please note that these numbers are based on minimum attendance. Every additional player after the initial 10, would add more boosters to the pool with an additional 5 players adding another box, which is 36 boosters. So the more people there are, the bigger the prize pool grows, and in turn, the more boosters everyone gets. Let’s assume there is an attendance of 40 players (the maximum The Arena could hold if I invest in more furniture).
This is how the prize structure for the 40-person, 6-round-tournament with a Top 8 cut would look like:
1st place: 36 packs (1 booster box), 2 foil promo packs, 3 non-foil promo packs.
2nd place: 27 packs, 1 foil promo pack, 2 non-foil promo packs.
3rd & 4th place: 18 packs each, 1 foil promo pack, 2 non-foil promo packs.
5th – 8th place: 12 packs each.
9th – 12th place: 9 packs each.
13th – 16th place: 6 packs each.
17th – 20th place: 5 packs each.
21st – 40th place: 3 packs each.
The same system would apply to all other games but with different pricing. The following games will be featured in the Gladiator’s Challenge: Flesh and Blood, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Magic: the Gathering, and One Piece. Depending on the participation numbers some games might be replaced by others like Pokemon, UniVersus, Union Arena, Altered, etc. It’s all about what people want to play; feedback is very much appreciated. I do plan on offering more promo packs from each tournament as long as I receive more. I am more than happy to give them all out.
Alright. This is the general concept for Gladiator’s Challenge. What do you think about it? Good, bad, terrible? I know that on the lower side of attendance, it’s quite bad, but this should maybe motivate people to show up in higher numbers. At 40 players total, it would be considerably better. I don’t expect to reach that number soon, but you know, gotta start somewhere. Let’s see what will happen with these events. Hopefully, some of them will be a success.
The first tournament for this kind of event will be on 28.09.2024. We’re kicking things off with a MtG Modern tournament. The next events will be posted on Facebook and Instagram. Follow The Arena there for more info on when each event will happen.
That’s it from me for today. I hope that these events will prove popular with both competitive and non-competitive players. You never know how far your homebrew can get if you don’t give it a try. So take the chance, get the glory you deserve, and become the very first Gladiator featured on the walls of The Arena!
Thanks for reading.
See you in The Arena!
– Adrian
English